The Vampire Lovers

The Vampire Lovers - 1970 | 91 mins | Horror | Colour

The Production Team

Director: Roy Ward Baker.
Producer: Harry Fine and Michael Style.
Script: Tudor Gates. Adaptation by Harry Fine, Tudor Gates and Michael Style. (based on the Sheridan Le Fanu story Carmilla)
Cinematography: Moray Grant.
Editing: James Needs.
Art Direction: Scott MacGregor.
Costume Design: Brian Cox.
Make-up: Tom Smith and Pearl Tipaldi.
Sound: Claude Hitchcock, Roy Hyde and Dennis Whitlock.
Original Music: Harry Robertson.

The Cast

Ingrid Pitt - Marcilla/Carmilla/Mircalla Karnstein
George Cole - Roger Morton
Kate O'Mara - The Governess
Peter Cushing - General von Spielsdorf
Ferdy Mayne - Doctor
Douglas Wilmer - Baron Joachim von Hartog
Madeline Smith - Emma Morton
Dawn Addams - The Countess
Jon Finch - Carl Ebhardt

Plot Synopsis

The Vampire Lovers was Hammer's first and only co-production with Hollywood's leading horror specialists American International, who have been responsible for most of the Edgar Allan Poe pictures. This film tapped a new source of classic horror literature, the work of J. Sheridan Le Fanu, and injected an audacious dose of sex into the proceedings.

Ingrid Pitt plays a beautiful female vampire, Mircalla Karnstein alias Carmilla. Carmilla rises from the grave to avenge the deaths of her relatives, claiming not only the odd male as victim, but also several attractive young girls, a lesbian aspect emphasised by her fanged attention to their breasts. Moving on to the family of Roger Morton (George Cole), Carmilla continues her revenge afresh on his impressionable daughter Emma (Madeleine Smith). Douglas Wilmer's Baron Hartog is Carmilla's chief adversary, arranging for a stake to penetrate her heart, while Peter Cushing's General Spielsdorf, father of one of her victims, makes doubly sure by removing her head!